Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/07/21

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Subject: [Leica] Computer help!!!
From: don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory)
Date: Thu Jul 21 08:25:48 2005
References: <000001c58dab$3ecd67a0$6701a8c0@OFFICE> <6.2.1.2.0.20050821010138.02d5a2f0@mail.infoave.net> <9b678e0507210753400fbf95@mail.gmail.com> <A005104C5C79DF1CAB305EA9@hindolveston.reid.org>

Thank you Brian,

I was looking for unusual circumstances as Tina was having a fairly
rapid failure rate on her hardware.  I am sure that her drives are in
an air conditioned environment which would limit heat and humidity
issues unless the drives were used in a south facing window with no
blinds and Tina works in an 85F environment to save electricity which
I strongly doubt.

Don
don.dory@gmail.com

On 7/21/05, Brian Reid <reid@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> wrote:
> It is extremely difficult (though not impossible) for software problems to 
> cause disk failures. Normally when you have a software-related disk 
> problem, the issue is that the data get written incorrectly to the disk, 
> or else are read incorrectly back from it. A crashed disk, one needing 
> physical replacement, has something electrical or physical wrong with it. 
> There is 1 chance in a million that this kind of failure is caused by 
> software issues of any kind.
> 
> It is also quite difficult (maybe 1 chance in 50,000) for the main 
> computer hardware to do something that breaks disks. This is especially 
> true when those disks are connected by USB or FireWire. When disks fail 
> and need replacement, it is because something physical has changed inside 
> the disk.
> 
> It is very unlikely that electrical power phenomena can cause disk 
> failure. This is because the electric power is not used directly by the 
> disk. The mains voltage is converted to low-voltage DC, and that converted 
> power is used to operate the disk. If there is an anomaly of some kind on 
> the electric power mains, the power supply itself is usually what fries. I 
> would offer odds of 1 in 200,000 that a power mains event damaged a disk 
> without damaging at least one other part of the computer,
> usually the power supply.
> 
> The most common problems are heat, humidity, and manufacturing defects. 
> Heat can really trash a disk. Humidity is not quite as bad as heat, but 
> the combination of heat and humidity can be deadly.
> 
> Other problems are vibration and dust. When a disk is turned off, it is 
> very rugged and quite immune to dust. When it is turned on, it requires an 
> environment that is free of vibration and dust, to say nothing of heat and 
> moisture.
> 
> So don't expect a software upgrade, or even the replacement of your 
> computer itself, to solve a problem that is causing disks to be damaged. 
> It's very much more likely that the damage is caused by the abovementioned 
> environmental factors and not by malicious signals or bad electricity 
> being transmitted to the disk over its connecting wires.
> 
> Brian
> 
> 
> 
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>


Replies: Reply from images at InfoAve.Net (Tina Manley) ([Leica] Computer help!!!)
In reply to: Message from robinson at sfsu.edu (Gib Robinson) ([Leica] Computer help!!!)
Message from images at InfoAve.Net (Tina Manley) ([Leica] Computer help!!!)
Message from don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory) ([Leica] Computer help!!!)
Message from reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid) ([Leica] Computer help!!!)